If ever there is an argument to be made that a console manufacturer should not go third party, Sega is the perfect example to go along with it. Once upon a time, the company used to be synonymous with quality gaming, and their own games used to be the best in the industry, matched and beaten only by rival Nintendo. Today, Sega stands as a shell of its former self, with its own games being a crapshoot as far as quality goes, its brand diluted by multiple low quality releases over the years.
As to the latter part, Sega admits fully to having lost its focus on quality a fair bit during the Wii era. In an interview with MCV UK, Sega Europe boss Jurgen Post admitted that while the company’s products on the Wii and DS may have netted the company strong sales, they were also low quality and opportunistic.
“We were a little bit opportunistic, signing a lot of titles and doing things that were not necessarily very good,” explained Post. “There was a time when you could sell a lot of products, for example on Wii, but that market has gone. Today if you want to survive, you need to focus on quality. We want to create games that are very good and have a long tail.”
“It is an exciting times with lots of opportunities,” Post concluded.
To be fair to Sega, not all of its Wii games were bad- most of the Sonic stuff, sure, and releasing games like The Conduit was misguided, but games like House of the Dead: Overkill were inherently fun and channeled Sega’s arcade roots and mentality. MadWorld, on the other hand, while definitely Platinum’s weakest game in hindsight, was also a quirky cult hit game, and is to Sega’s credit. Nonetheless, it is good to see that the company plans on focusing on quality going forward.